Grace and peace to you.
This Sunday, the wilderness we are in is the one we hear about in the text from Exodus. Moses led the people of Israel out of slavery and they were singing praises to God, saying, “The LORD is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him. (Exodus 15:2)”
And almost as soon as the words of praise left their mouths, they began complaining. And the Lord heard their complaints.
The water was bitter, so the Lord made it sweet.
The food was scarce, so the Lord provided manna.
In the reading this morning, the Israelites are in an unfamiliar place with a lot of uncertainty ahead. They are unmoored and they are quarreling with Moses.
I expect they were quarreling with each other too, sharing the bits of information and stories they had heard from each other. I expect their patience was wearing thin and they were questioning everything they were hearing and wondering what to do next.
It sounds a lot like where we find ourselves this Sunday morning, where we are experiencing new and unfamiliar circumstances because of concerns about COVID-19 or the coronavirus. It is unsettling to live in the midst of uncertainty.
And it is easy to become quarrelsome, frustrated and even fearful. It is our very human response.
The third time the Israelites wonder aloud whether Moses intended to kill them by leading them into the wilderness, Moses challenges them to see that their complaints are actually a test they are placing on God.
They had accepted God’s assurance that God would free them and deliver them from slavery, trusting in God’s redemption and judgement against the Egyptians. (Exodus 6)
They accepted God’s Word that said, “I will take you as my people, and I will be your God.” (Exodus 6)
And they believed in the promise God gave them to bring them into the land that God swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Exodus 6)
But they still wanted God to perform, to demonstrate God’s providence on their timetable and for their comfort. As Old Testament professor Terence Fretheim wrote, “Israel’s testing of God [said] “if we are to believe that God is really present, then God must show us a concrete way by making water materialize.” …[They] made their belief contingent upon such a demonstration.”[i]
It reminds me again of the old joke about the religious man that I’m sure you know. It goes this way:
There once was a very religious man who was caught in rising floodwaters. He climbed onto the roof of his house and trusted God to rescue him.In this period of living differently in response to the pandemic, people have quarreled about who is at fault and questioned whether the response is too extreme.
A neighbor came by in a canoe and said, “The waters will soon be above your house. Hop in and we’ll paddle to safety.”
“No, thanks,” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure God will save me.”
A short time later the police came by in a boat. “The waters will soon be above your house. Hop in and we’ll take you to safety.”
“No, thanks,” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure God will save me.”
A little time later a rescue services helicopter hovered overhead, let down a rope ladder and said. “The waters will soon be above your house. Climb the ladder and we’ll fly you to safety.”
“No, thanks,” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure God will save me.”
All this time the floodwaters continued to rise, until soon they reached above the roof and the religious man drowned. When he arrived at heaven he demanded an audience with God and he said, “Lord, why am I here in heaven? I prayed for you to save me, I trusted you to save me from that flood.”
“Yes, you did my child,” replied the Lord. “And I sent you a canoe, a boat and a helicopter. But you never got in.”
There will be some who will insist God will save them from infection or disease, and refuse to take precautions, but God is not a servant at our beck and call.[ii] Public health, medicine and science are part of God’s good creation, as well, and the people who are called to those vocations are working for the public good.
After issuing his challenge to the Israelites, Moses leaves the quarreling crowds and asks God what to do. Periodically, I need the reminder, too, not to complain or worry or ask my neighbor their opinion, but to seek God first, and ask God for help.
And God hears Moses and responds. God appeared to Moses and the elders of the tribe and made water appear out of the rock at Horeb. God satisfied the human longings - both the very real and material need for water and the Israelites’ need to see that God was still with them, even in the wilderness.
The text tells us that Moses then named the place after the quarreling Israelites whose question and test had been, “Is the LORD among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7)
It’s a question I believe many of us carry through our days. “Is the LORD among us or not?”
The Good News is the answer is a resounding “Yes!” The Lord is among us, always.
Even when we cannot worship together on a Sunday morning.
Even when we cannot share supper and evening prayer on a Wednesday night.
Even when we are grieving the loss of what is familiar and the potential loss of what we have hoped for in the next few weeks or months.
The Lord is among us when we call the person we usually sit near, or send a text or a smiley face emoji to someone we haven’t seen, or mail a card to someone who isn’t able to have visitors right now. I am especially concerned for people who are already physically and digitally isolated, but I have confidence that the Lord is among us and we will find other ways to connect.
Yesterday I was in a meeting with volunteers who are planning to serve together at the Kairos Outside retreat later this spring, and we were talking about finding gratitude even in the midst of rapidly changing news and evolving plans. It is hard to choose gratitude and thanksgiving when we are grieving loss or we are afraid or frustrated. But we began naming the places we could find gratitude even in the pandemic:
the opportunity to stop the busy-ness of our lives and rest
the ways we can connect by phone and technology
the time families will spend together because school and activities have been canceled
The psalmist today echoes Moses’ own song that I quoted earlier, telling us, “let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.” (Psalm 95) The Lord is our salvation and is among us in this wilderness.
Even in the uncertainty of this wilderness, we remain both a human family and the body of Christ and our relationships, our care for each other and our love for our neighbor are not canceled.
Believing the Lord is among us frees us to love our neighbors, and right now, that love looks like empty pews. But it also frees us to look for ways to show up for one another when we cannot show up in the church sanctuary. May we see God in those very places.
Amen.
[i] Terence Fretheim. Exodus. 189.
[ii] ibid
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